Role of ICT development in rural areas in Africa
African culture is all about being together rather than progressing as an individual, therefore the main purpose of ict in rural Africa should be a tool of being/getting together. This can either be explained in ways of social networks such as face book and twitter for one or group communication, or using internet as an addition to current group activities. For example, wedding initiations can be sent easily to distant relatives. ICT can be presented as way of gathering information, for education purposes or community purposes.
Community Development
As community is the central way of life in rural East Africa, people should strive to community development rather than individual development. This is a difficult concept in western people, because they do not have such tight communities. A development should be beneficial for the whole community such as sanitation or clean drinking water rather than a bigger house or a faster car. ICT can support these developments in ways of education and providing (access to) resources that can be used for community activities such as building borehole environmental conservation example biogas or setting up an agricultural project. Besides these benefits, integration of ICT in rural areas provides many jobs and opportunities.
Education
In many ways ICT can be beneficial in the educational branch. Teachers can access to more educational programs and can compare these among each other to strive to the best education possible. Student have unlimited supply of knowledge and data that they can use for research.
Small/medium enterprise development
Rural economies are disadvantaged by consisting mostly of small or medium sized enterprises, which find it very difficult to compete with global enterprises which control the market. With access to the internet, local farmers and government farms